What Were They Watching?

[Guest MsGsptlsnz]

One has to wonder since both candidates are evil, which I agree with, do people who vote for Obama fall into the hardcore Dem or bigot camp?

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there are many reasons why somoene should be voting for Obama either. In the end it wont make a real differance since the Democrats aren't going to end the Drug War or legalize gay marriage. Just like the Republcans wont get rid of the programs they threaten to eliminate or get rid of the thousands of gun laws on the books. Its all rhetoric to win votes. What I find facinanting is the rhetoric they use and who it is directed to.

I think Dems can be more of an elitist kind of bigot. They push social programs that intend to help but the attitude is often one of "oh those poor minorities, without our help they would be so bad off because everyone knows they can't advance without our support." Which is almost as insulting as just coming out and saying that you hate them because they have that real dark tan.

[Sally]

Bigotry simply put is taking a large group of people and dismissing them because they belong to that group.

So I have brown eyes, I do not like everyone in the world with brown eyes nor do I hate everyone with a different color but if I did hate everyone with green eyes that would make me a bigot.

No group is all good or all bad - that has been proven by Catholic priests, some molest the alter boys while most do not but a bigot hates all Catholic Priests because of the actions of the few.

Bigotry is abundant here - and most often used by the people who are bigoted themselves - I made a generalization about people who would vote Republican even though the Republican party hardly knows they exist - it could be taken as bigoted, it certainly was not meant to be.

I do not really vote party lines because anyone can nominate an idiot or a loose cannon - and often do, there have been some pretty bad candidates from both parties but I still try to figure out who is going to help most of America - the middle class became an endangered species under the previous President - We need the middle class, we pay for all of the programs, the ones that help the poor and the ones that allow tax breaks for the rich.

The only way to end bigotry is to recognize it when we are being bigots ourselves, my apologies to responsible and intelligent people who do not make a lot of money but still believe that the Republican plan is the better plan - vote your convictions and I will have no problem with it - it is your right to vote how you choose and I am not such an authority that I could even say which is better - I will vote my beliefs - that is why we have elections.

Love ya, ALL of ya,

Sally

[Guest KimberlyF]

So we get to the generalization that started this dustup. Republicans are bigots. I think for the majority it is true. Their stated ideology attracts that kind of person. Gutting the social welfare programs sounds good to your typcial white power guy because he thinks it's only african americans and hispanic americans who are using the programs. The Drug War sells real well to that crowd because they know it is unfairly enforced against minorities. The list goes on. Very few planks of the Republican platform would offend a Neo-cup cake or KKK member. I seriously doubt you will find many of those bigoted types voting for Democrats with their support of affirmative action, integration of schools, support of GLBT rights and social welfare. So while not all Republican voters may be bigots, all bigots are likely voting Republican...

Everyone is entitled to their opinions and are subject to their experiences.

I grew up in Chicago. We have not had a Republican Mayor since 1931. It is an extremely Democratic city. And yet, when the first black man ran for mayor, 81% of whites voted Republican. There was a 3% difference in votes cast. I was in school at the time and many of my classmate's parents were lifelong Dems, other than this one vote. I now work with the people my age in a union that are these people's sons and daughters, and things have gotten a little better in that they'll vote for (in their words) the 'N' instead of the Republican. How progressive!

[Guest MsGsptlsnz]

I grew up in Chicago. We have not had a Republican Mayor since 1931. It is an extremely Democratic city. And yet, when the first black man ran for mayor, 81% of whites voted Republican.

Are you talking about Harold Washington, Mayor in the 80s? I can see that happening in such a heavy union area. You know, union politics have always been strange. Blue collar workers with a lot in common with the typical Republican voter who are voting Democrat. I've never really understood why they are such a strong Democrat block when their well being is based on industry staying here and Democrats tend to regulate industry into moving out of the country. It seems they are voting against their best intrests. Never made any sense to me. But then you have Log Cabin Republicans and African Americans who vote Republican so there are exceptions on both sides of the aisle.

[Guest MsGsptlsnz]

Bigotry simply put is taking a large group of people and dismissing them because they belong to that group.

So I have brown eyes, I do not like everyone in the world with brown eyes nor do I hate everyone with a different color but if I did hate everyone with green eyes that would make me a bigot.

How does that apply to generalizations about politcal parties and their die hard voters? Sure, if I take a group based on something they have no control over such as eye, skin or hair color and say all of them are stupid and I wouldn't hire them, trust them with complex tasks or allow them in my home that's bigotry. But if we said that blondes and redheads have a greater chance of getting skin cancer, that is simply a generalization which happens to be true. It's useful to point out so that natural blondes and redheads are more careful about sun exposure. But it's not bigotry.

Bigotry is abundant here

I think we use generalizations about groups, all humans do that. It's something from our earliest evolution and it still hangs on today. We put things in categories and use those categories to make quick survival decisions about other things we haven't seen before. Things with sharp pointy teeth eat other animals. Things with antlers don't eat other animals. Things that taste bitter are bad, Things that taste sweet are good. If we didn't do that we'd likely not have survived as a species.

I made a generalization about people who would vote Republican even though the Republican party hardly knows they exist - it could be taken as bigoted, it certainly was not meant to be.

I don't think generalizations about politcal parties can be bigoted statements. They are groups people voulentarily associate with. There is plenty of information out there about the basic stands of these groups and if you identify yourself with one of them you accept the whole package. Otherwise you call yourself an independant and try to vote based on the person. If you don't like what the party you belong to is doing you can change your affilaition it with a trip to the Clerks office or you can get off your butt and try to change the things the party does. So if you stick with a party that has a record of fighting against any and all laws that can imporve the well being of minority groups then you should accept the label of bigot for being with that party. You might not be actively bigoted in your own life but your support of a political movement that does paints you with that brush.

Not to start dropping cup cake and prove that all political discussions go that way, but it does go along well with the arguemnt. Not everyone who joined the cup cake party in Germany hated Jews. Some just wanted in for the perks being a member of the party offered such as the abiltiy to get military ond government contracts. Anyone remember Schindlers List? He joined the party not because he had any stand on Jews but he did want to manifacture munitions and being a party member gave him an in. So do we give cup cakes a pass because not 100 percent of them were a bunch of Jew hating monsters? Are we bigoted for using a generalization about them? I hope not. Because I am going to make that generalzaiton when I see some punk with a swasticka on his jacket every time. That punk is willingly associating with a group known to be bigots. Calling that duck a duck can't be a biogted.

The only way to end bigotry is to recognize it when we are being bigots ourselves

True, but I think we have to be careful about throwing the word around for everyone who makes generalizations. Like I said, we all do it, it's how are brains work. But not all generaliaztions are bigoted even though all bigotry is rooted in generalization. Not to mention some generalizations are true in a significant number of cases so while not true for 100% they are true for enough to be useful. If a Jewish man sees a group of punks with swastikas on their jackets using the generalization of swastika wearing equals jew hating helps him survive by avoiding them and doing his best to not let on to them that he is a jew.

[Michelle 2010]

The Republican voters were watching Barak Obama and remembering how much they hate the fact that a man with such a great suntan is in the whitehouse. They prefer a pasty skintone. The Republicans could have run Daffy Duck and they'd still vote for him over Obama. There is a hate there that transcends common sense.

Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, the Sec of Interior Ken Salazar all less than pasty, perhaps the issue is political perspective rather than skin tone?

Hugs

Michelle

[Guest MsGsptlsnz]

I said prefer. Note that none of them were elected. All appointed to their positions. They didn't have to face an election and win the votes of Republcians. If they had, I doubt very much that they would have gotten the jobs. I know that the Republcians I associate with saw each of them as some kind of mechanism to stick it to the liberals. I don't quite understand the logic, but they certainly didn't have many nice things to say about those folks. Not like the other cabinet members with pastier complexions. Those they loved.

You know, I'm not saying that every person who votes republican is a old bigoted waste of protein. I am saying that those who were polled that still are going to vote for Mitt are bigoted because there is no way a rational person can still want to vote FOR that guy after his debate performances and all the flip flopping he has done. They can only be voting against the other guy and the other guy hasn't been all that bad. In fact, most of the Republicans on Yahoo who comment on election news stories say that we have to vote for Mitt to keep (fill in the blank with insulting nickname for Obama) out of the Whtie House. When asked why they have a real hard time expalaining it without sounding like a member of the KKK.

Sure there are people registered to vote Republcian who aren't bigoted themselves. But they are supporting a party that has as it's goal the eradication of social welfare programs that help minorities. They are supporting a party that supports what they call reasonable restrictions on the Second Amendment, which means keeping guns out of the hands of scary african amerian males. They may not see themselves as bigots, but their intended legislative agenda sure sounds bigoted to me. At what point can a person who supported the cup cake party still be able to step back and say "I was just along for the economic reforms, that who jew killing thing wasn't what I wanted" and have his soul be clean?

[Guest KimberlyF]

As pasty white as Bobby Jindal and Michael Steele and Marco Rubio who've all been elected to state offices.

Time to move the goal posts again!

[Guest MsGsptlsnz]

Time to move the goal posts again!

Republicans for the last 20 years have ran on an agenda that is all about taking rights and protections away from minority groups. If you're skin aint pink they don't want you to be a part of their vision of America. Their support of harsher penalties and minimum sentancing for drug related crimes is a great example of this. The same percentages of caucasion and african americans do drugs. Study after study shows this to be a fact. Yet when we look in the prison system african americans far out number caucasions in prison populations while they make up something like 15% of the US population overall. Clearly the War on Drugs is more of a War on African American Men.

A prison stay equals loss of voting rights for life in a third of the states and loss of voting rights for a period of time extending beyond incarceraion in another third. It also means having to mark that "Felon" box on a job application which makes getting a job anywhere other than McDonnalds pretty tough. Pretty much makes you a second class citizen for life. I'd say that's pretty damning evidence where the majority of bigotry hangs their hat politicaly. Sure they have some odd exceptions electoraly, politics being what it is you get some odd outcomes from time to time. But if you look at the legislative histories of the parties since Nixon you see a rapid shift toward anti-minority politics from the Republicans.

Are the Democrats any better? Not really. But thiers is a problem with developing a spine. Not a problem with disliking minority groups. They wouldn't lose much of their support if they came out and did something about the War on African Americans... er.. Drugs. They might even gain some respect and my vote. But their analysts have got them all freeked out about being marginalized like Libertarians if they actualy drop a pair and do whats right. So they sit back and let the Republicans run roughshod over the rights of the little guys. That's why I stopped voting. I couldn't stomach casting a vote for either side. One with no heart and the other with no gonads. Not much of a choice.

I stand by my original statement. Anyone who watched the debates and is still voting Romney isn't voting FOR him, they are voting AGAINST the other guy. Obama has been, compared to the last 40 years of presidents, not all that bad. He has been trying to drag us screaming and kicking into the 21st century. If any pasty faced republican had did what he has done they would love him. The only thing that makes any sense for why Romney is still polling in the double digits is most Republicans are opposed to an african american in the white house. Nothing else makes any rational sense.

Take a look at the comments section on Yahoo on news stories about the election. Have a stiff drink nearby because you will need it. It's disturbing how Romney supporters talk about Obama. They are willing to blame everything on him. This isn't the same kind of hate they had for Clinton. It's deeper and more vitriolic. You'd think that we had elected Joseph Stalin to the White House as bad as they say he is. A Kenyan communuist secret agent sent to destroy America form within and hand it over to his Muslim masters to subjugate us under Islamic Law so we can't eat fried chicken or wear blue jeans any more or some such nonsense. It's so laughable you have to wonder if they believe it or if they are just saying that because saying "we gotta git that (n word) out of the white house" would be too obvious.

[Guest KimberlyF]

I stand by my original statement.

I am shocked.

Do you stand by these statements?

" So while not all Republican voters may be bigots, all bigots are likely voting Republican..."

"Note that none of them were elected. All appointed to their positions. They didn't have to face an election and win the votes of Republcians. If they had, I doubt very much that they would have gotten the jobs." In regards to the statement you made: "The Republican voters were watching Barak Obama and remembering how much they hate the fact that a man with such a great suntan is in the whitehouse. They prefer a pasty skintone."

And please rank in order from most evil to least-Republicans, Klan and cup cake

Also I'm confused as to if Shindler was a good witch or a bad witch? I can't even tell after reading it.

And in what cases do you support guilt by association?

I'll hang up and wait for some answers. Maybe after this I'll just sit this one out since to me anyway it seems you are taking both sides on a few issues to support unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, especially of a hostile nature, regarding a national group.

Again, it's prob just my view, but you appear to be flip flopping on some of the answers.

[Guest MsGsptlsnz]

Do you stand by these statements?

" So while not all Republican voters may be bigots, all bigots are likely voting Republican..."

Yes. In fact, there was a recent study that said the following...

The poll finds that racial prejudice is not limited to one group of partisans. Although Republicans were more likely than Democrats to express racial prejudice in the questions measuring explicit racism (79 percent among Republicans compared with 32 percent among Democrats), the implicit test found little difference between the two parties. That test showed a majority of both Democrats and Republicans held anti-black feelings (55 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans), as did about half of political independents (49 percent).

So near enough to 4 out of 5 Republicans are not ashamed of their bigoted views. Here's how the studies were done.

The explicit racism measures asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements about black and Hispanic people. In addition, the surveys asked how well respondents thought certain words, such as "friendly," ''hardworking," ''violent" and "lazy," described blacks, whites and Hispanics.

The same respondents were also administered a survey designed to measure implicit racism, in which a photo of a black, Hispanic or white male flashed on the screen before a neutral image of a Chinese character. The respondents were then asked to rate their feelings toward the Chinese character. Previous research has shown that people transfer their feelings about the photo onto the character, allowing researchers to measure racist feelings even if a respondent does not acknowledge them.

So the Democrats were as bad as Republicans on their subconcious impressions of african americans, liklely the fault of all those stupid cop shows were darn near every african american male is portrayed as a gang banger or wife beater. But the Republicans were the clear majority of ones who will openly speak about their bigotry. Which is pretty much what I have said all along. Althogh I will admit the 1/3 of Democrats expressing open bigoty does distrurb me, but then again Union labor are often registeed as Democrats and I've said before that they have more in common with Republicans.

"Note that none of them were elected. All appointed to their positions. They didn't have to face an election and win the votes of Republcians. If they had, I doubt very much that they would have gotten the jobs." In regards to the statement you made: "The Republican voters were watching Barak Obama and remembering how much they hate the fact that a man with such a great suntan is in the whitehouse. They prefer a pasty skintone."

How is that contradictory. The original discussion is about the presidential debates and how anyone in their right mind could be voting for Romney after seeing him flip flop all over the place. You started bringing in state and local elections along with political appontees. When you look at the numbers, 4 out of 5 Republcians polled agree with racial stereotypes of african americans and hispanics, you have to think that in most cases members of those ethnic groups don't have much of a chance. But I've seen wacky things happen at the state and local level in elections. penis Cheney lost an election to a dead guy. If that can happen the occasional dark suntan can slip into a Republican state office or two.

And please rank in order from most evil to least-Republicans, Klan and cup cake

Well, in order of having done the most damage to minority groups I have to say cup cake, Republican then Klan. cup cakes did a real number on Jews, Gays, Gypsys and Mentaly Retarded people. The Republicans have only managed to destroy the lives of african americans and gays while executing only a few mentaly retarded people, mainly in Texas. The Klan was a lot of smoke and noise but never managed to destroy the well being of african americans like the Republicans have done. They may have murdered some people and got some laws passed at the state level but they were clearly the minor league team. But many of thier best players have moved on to the Major leagues when the Republicans picked them up.

Also I'm confused as to if Shindler was a good witch or a bad witch? I can't even tell after reading it.

I don't think we will ever really know all of the truth there. He's been cannonized for his role in saving so many lives so it's hard to get a story that doens't all but put a halo on his head. The reason for bringing him up was to make the point that basicly good people can get involved in bad movements for differant reasons. However just because you can point to a handful of people who did the right thing who were members of those biogted groups doesn't mean you can no longer call that group bigoted.

And in what cases do you support guilt by association?

I think the problem is you want to give them innocence by association. You find a handful of Republicans who are not bigoted and try to say it's wrong to call the group bigoted becasue of the bigoted things they do. As for guilt by association, I do think we should hold voters liable for the idiots they put in office. I think the voters who put George Bush Jr. in the White House the first time need to have their heads examined but those that voted for him the second time need to be fined for the cost of his useless wars and the lives they cost. Then maybe people would take this voting thing seriously and we'd see some better candidates.

Again, it's prob just my view, but you appear to be flip flopping on some of the answers.

Well, the conversation has strayed a bit from racial predjudice in presidential politics. Odds are with this much typing and the amount of painkillers I have been on this week I may have slipped a few confusing statements in with what I intended to say. Do keep in mind around half of these are time stamped for 2 AM or so.

But again I will point to the comments that follow news stories about the election. Romney supporters cant give you any reasons to vote FOR their guy, only reasons to vote AGAINST Obama. Most of the answers boil down to "we can't have that (n word) in the white house for another term. Well, that and the accusations that Obama is a Kenyan Communist Infitrator ready to give the nation over to the Interanational Muslim Conspiracy.

[Carolyn Marie]

I think its time to throw in a reminder about the use of language. There have been quite a number of terms used that are offensive to many, not the least of which is "retarded." We have members here with special needs children, and they don't appreciate the pejorative use of that term. Ms. G, I think you've made your point of view quite clear, and belaboring the point is not furthering the cause of civil discourse. How about we talk about the election, and the candidates, and leave the racial views of voters to another time, and another debate? Thank you.

Carolyn Marie